7/20/2017

Dobršská brána (aka The Gate of Dobrš) Festival, located in historic village Dobrš (South Czech region, near Strakonice city) is focused on alternative crossfields of folklore, contemporary chamber music and improvisation. All the info about programme, place, accomodation, etc. can be found on Festival website.

"The ongoing goal of MoonJune is to support music that transcends stylistic pigeon-holing, but operates within an evolutionary progressive musical continuum that places jazz at one end and rock at the other." www.moonjune.com

6/07/2017

Iva Bittová & Čikori have recorded a new album “At Home”. Nine original songs follow up marvellously the legendary album “Bíle Inferno” (i.e. White Inferno) both with the band members and the album’s poetics but also with its song form and the overall sound of the recordings.

“At Home” includes three songs with English lyrics, which are essential for the album. At Home was written by Linda Gregg, A Paper Cone by renowned London critic, radio editor, occasional lyricist and poet, Ken Hunt. The band Čikori consists of Vladimír Václavek (guitar), Jaromír Honzák (double bass), Oskar Török (trumpet). Antonín Fajt (piano), Hamid Drake (drums) and a few others joined the recordings as guest musicians. The mastering was done by the well respected Dave Cook (e.g. Nick Cave, David Bowie, Alanis Morissette, Radiohead) at the studio AREA 52 in New York. The album is dedicated to Lenka Zogatová and Zuzana Viktorinová in memoriam.

Iva Bittová is one of the most prominent and most respected artists on the Czech alternative, jazz, and world music scenes.

Prague based international quintet Prázdné hory jsou plné větru a deště (Empty Mountains Are Full of Wind and Rain), whose name comes from old Korean zen poem, was founded in 2014 as trio of Michal Hrubý (saxes and bass clarinet), Finnish double bassist Esko Mäkinen (he plays also harmonium, melodica and some pipes) and American percussionist Hearn Gadbois, who played and recorded with Patti Smith or Suzanne Vega. They were later joined by Japanese sax and shakuhachi player Kenji Seizan Osako and Anna Romanovská (member of Contemporary music ensemble Orchestr Berg) on violin and koto. Their freely improvised music is based on elements of jazz and ethnic music from homelands of all members. In concert at Prague Café Liberal, June 11th, they will be joined by ex-Captain Beefheat guitarist Gary Lucas.

3/05/2017

Four times per year, Silver Spring, Maryland based label Cuneiform Records usually releases four new titles of adventurous music. Latest bunch seems really strong.

Crazy times call for outrageous music, and few jazz ensembles are better prepared to meet the surreality of this reality-TV-era than the antic and epically creative Ed Palermo Big Band. The New Jersey saxophonist, composer and arranger is best known for his celebrated performances interpreting the ingenious compositions of Frank Zappa, an extensive body of work documented on previous Cuneiform albums.

But his fifth project for the label, The Great Un-American Songbook Volumes 1 & 2, is a love letter to the rockers who ruled the AM and FM airwaves in the 1960s via successive waves of the British Invasion. Featuring largely the same stellar cast of players as last year’s gloriously eclectic One Child Left Behind, the 18-piece EPBB lovingly reinvents songs famous and obscure, leaving them readily recognizable and utterly transformed. The first installments in what he hopes to be an ongoing project, these two volumes give a whole new meaning to 'swinging London'.

You can hear demanding vocal or instrumental versions of songs by Cream, Jethro Tull, Procol Harum, King Crimson, The Beatles, ELP or Radiohead on this album.

Chicago / London Underground presents first meeting of core duo of Chicago Underground Collective, cornet player Rob Mazurek and drummer Chad Taylor (both uses also electronics) with prominent London improvisers, pianist Alexander Hawkins and bassist John Edwards, recorded live at Café OTO in London, April 2016. The result named A Night Walking Through Mirrors is an expansive sonic adventure whose every unexpected note and alchemical reaction runs counter to the limited imaginations ruling social media name-calling and clannish provincialism.
album on bandcamp

The other releases are new albums by another Americans, experimental jazz oriented The Microscopic Septet and avant-prog combo Thinking Plague.

LiNKS

FOLLOWiNG THROUGH

THERE iS NEVER ANY END. THERE ARE ALWAYS NEW SOUNDS TO iMAGINE; NEW FEELiNGS TO GET AT. AND ALWAYS, THERE iS THE NEED TO KEEP PURiFYiNG THESE FEELiNGS AND SOUNDS SO THAT WE CAN REALLY SEE WHAT WE'VE DiSCOVERED iN iTS PURE STATE. SO THAT WE CAN SEE MORE AND MORE CLEARLY WHAT WE ARE. BUT TO DO THAT AT EACH STAGE, WE HAVE TO KEEP ON CLEANiNG THE MiRROR.